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UnrealSkill
2008-04-14, 05:25 PM
So I've always wondered, how do you incorperate PC into a large scale batte such as army vs army without making an excesive amount of NPC vs NPC combat (which can be boring)?

Also how could you make the battle's end results reflect how well the PC did in the fight?

Any help is greatly accepted!

BRC
2008-04-14, 05:27 PM
The book Heroes of Battle was all about this.

RTGoodman
2008-04-14, 05:29 PM
My favorite method (and one that is presented in the Heroes of Battle supplement and the Red Hand of Doom adventure) is to only use the PCs for "special forces" type parts of the battle, and then what they accomplish is worth a specific amount of "victory points." If they sneak in and assassinate the enemy general and his highest staff members, they get a lot of victory points; if they stop the rock-throwing giant "artillery," they get a few. Just total up the number of points possible, and decide how many are needed for total victory, possible victory, and defeat.

AslanCross
2008-04-14, 07:12 PM
Yeah, the Victory Point system is one of the better ways to do it. That way the PCs can affect the large battle without having to slog through the nitty-gritty of large-scale warfare.

Heroes of Battle says it very well: Managing the army in general in terms of logistics and maneuvers is wargaming, not roleplaying. While the PCs may command a unit of elite troopers, ideally they're not supposed to be concerned with the more mundane elements of war, or about sociopolitical ideologies driving the war. It also refers to great war movies: they're typically about the adventures of a specific squad and how they contribute to the war effort (or change its course), and not how the generals manage the flux of troops to and from the battlefield, or how to plot the courses of supply ships.

Battlefield adventures would be something like "Take out that damn trebuchet before it breaches the castle walls!" or "Kill the enemy's storm giant champion to boost our morale!"

Prometheus
2008-04-14, 10:41 PM
Victory points work for having the PCs do special missions, which is what they should be doing in an instance like this. Keep in mind here, they can still be soldiers in the middle of a battlefield, like you would see in a LotR movie, but you only simulate their nearest proximity. (for example: They attack an endless sea of soldiers, trying to move through slowly to the commander they see in the distance. In the meantime, they are forced to defend against a volley arrows, and a flaming boulder that lands nearby as a result of the catapult fire. The shock wave knocks your kingdom's prince off his horse, and his unit is fighting to defend him on all sides. Does the party send everyone to recover the prince, or split some of them off to the prince and the rest to attack the commander)

If you want to have the PCs win the battle through things like troop formations, attack strategies, alliance formation and all the things generals do, you are pretty limited. You just can't simulate or play out the results of every battle they order, and even if you could, you wouldn't know whether or not they had the advantage or not when you are setting up their resources. Therefore, the best you could hope for would be to evaluate the merits of their plans, and then tell them the results. Honestly, it doesn't mean a whole lot unless they do something in combat.

Hal
2008-04-14, 11:19 PM
It's homebrewed, but these rules (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1566) seemed interesting for mass battles. I like the "PCs as unit modifiers" aspect of it.

Frosty
2008-04-15, 12:23 AM
ideally they're not supposed to be concerned ...about sociopolitical ideologies driving the war.

Actually, the sociopolitical scene may be of great important. It would help the PCs make their moral and ethical choices, help them pick a side, and also help them decide the method with which to stop said war if they wish. They could use military tactics, or they could go to the opposing leaders and try some diplomacy. There are many solutions

Half-blood
2008-04-15, 12:27 AM
I Like to think of the Battle as a Backdrop As the PCs Start Commiting Mass Genocide.

Skjaldbakka
2008-04-15, 12:28 AM
I use the system from Slaine. You've gotta love a mass combat system entitled "Eyes Without Life, Sundered Heads, and Piles of Carcasses".

There is a feat tree in the game that consists of Sundered Heads, and Piles of Carcasses as well. The game is pretty much about leading people into battle, and making a bloody swathe through the enemy forces on the way to other exceptional people.

When I'm feeling lazy, I just modify the mob rules from DMGII.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-04-15, 01:06 AM
Heroes of Battle is about narrative combat, and is pretty good at it. PCs' actions determine the course of the battle in their area. It doesn't offer a solution to situations where the PCs are trying to lead units.

For mass combat, you can adapt this to D&D: Open Mass Combat (www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/conanmasscombat.pdf), from Mongoose, for Conan d20. Very little assembly required, and it's a pretty good system (even though you're left with the problem of "So how many casualties did we have?").

Pretty sure it's the same system Sláine uses.

Skjaldbakka
2008-04-15, 01:21 AM
Possibly. Slaine was produced by Mongoose. Slaine has a system for determining casualties, though.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-04-15, 01:31 AM
Ah, yeah, my bad, there's the Recovering Casualties section.

leperkhaun
2008-04-15, 01:40 AM
My group ran a mass battle using victory points and the PC's running special missions..

Best part was near the middle......our characters ran into the middle of a horde of pikemen (much much lower level types) and just slaughtered an entire wave. It was fun just to walk through the enemy and show off how badbleep they were compared to most.

Skjaldbakka
2008-04-15, 01:45 AM
Yeah, that's one of those things I HATE about D&D. Armies flat out don't work. There is no reason to use them- none. A group of mid-level adventurers can easily wipe out a traditional fantasy army by themselves, as can most of the threats they have to deal with on a regular basis.

D&D fails horribly as a system to run that kind of game. Fortunately, it is not the only system that can be used for medieval fantasy gaming.

Zenos
2008-04-15, 01:55 AM
If you want to play mass battles where the PC's lead units, just do a multiplayer game of Warhammer Fantasy or LOTR BSG. If you don't have one of these games, jsut use them as Special Ops.

Serpentine
2008-04-15, 02:11 AM
To potentially hijack the thread a bit, can I get a bit of advice on smallish-scale battle? (spoilered for Armidale group, Do Not Look)
To summarise, the party is (I hope) going to help an Abeil hive-fort full of moderately-seasoned soldiers and terrified refugees defend against an enslaught of soldier (or army) ant swarms and giant ants. I think that most of the mechanics I'm probably going to have to make up on the spot depending on what the party decides to do (for example, there's a healthy store of alchemist's fire in storage), but I'm also thinking of some sort of system of, on their own, each NPC side dealing so much damage each round, which comes out as so many casualties every so many rounds. The defenders will be tougher and have more hit points than the attackers, but there will be more attackers than defenders, which will appear in fluff-form as swathes of ants dying all over the place but more and more of them coming on and inexoriably bringing down one Abeil after another. Does this sound okay, and does anyone have any hints/tips/ideas/threats/problems?

Skjaldbakka
2008-04-15, 02:56 AM
If you want to play mass battles where the PC's lead units, just do a multiplayer game of Warhammer Fantasy or LOTR BSG. If you don't have one of these games, jsut use them as Special Ops.

Way to contribute meaningfully to the conversation. In the same vein, if want to play a fantasy roleplaying game, just play World of Warcraft.

Danzaver
2008-04-15, 08:31 AM
When I have NPC combats that I don't feel like rolling to see how they turn out (which is most of the time - players don't want to sit there as I commit the gamer equivalent of masturbation and do battle with myself), I often just use an overly simple method:

I assign each side with a number depending on how dangerous in combat it is. A red dragon would get ten, a peasant militia would get one. Or, whatever floats your boat. Modify for terrain, cover, circumstance, whatever.

Then I just roll a d10 and add the number, then do the same for the other side. Whichever rolls higher wins. The higher they beat the enemy roll, the higher margin they win by. Simple.

Newhill
2008-04-15, 12:30 PM
Personally, I like to use this system:

http://www.farlandworld.com/battle.html (Really hope that link works, if not, just copy and follow.)

I tend to give the PCs some goals, that give bonuses to their side if they manage to accomplish them. It's a bit rules heavy, but the whole thing is downloadable in a program that calculates the outcome for you. It's easy to use, and quick.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-04-15, 12:39 PM
A benefit of the Open Mass Combat System (aside from the free availability) is that you can transition seamlessly between "PCs against mooks" and "PC-led unit against another unit". The stats used are the same, you just need a few extra lines (counter size, number of counters, and counter hit points). If the PCs are up against something they can wipe out on their own, there's no real pause required to let them wade into the enemy in traditional combat style.

Combined with the victory point system from HoB, it should work out great.